The African continent hopes to benefit from China’s economic transformation. Many countries there are repositioning themselves to seek inspiration from China’s reform experience.

Over the past 30 years and more, China has achieved fast economic growth with its trade keeping expanding, which has completely changed the global economic and trade structure. “Made in China” is known almost to each household in Africa.

China has been Africa’s top trading partner since 2009, while Africa is China’s important source of import, market of contractual projects, and major investment destination. At present, one sixth of Africa’s export products go to China. At the recent AU Summit, China and the AU signed a MoU on infrastructure construction cooperation. China will also strengthen cooperation with African countries in the areas of railways, roads and regional aviation within the framework of “Vision 2063” for Africa. All this indicates a higher level of cooperation between China and Africa.

The speed of China’s economic growth and its sustainable development demonstrate to the world many factors underpinning economic growth, such as human resources development, balanced growth between agriculture and manufacturing, and infrastructure construction. All these factors have offered important lessons to other developing countries. Through its own efforts, China has been bold in innovation and found a path of development suitable to the reality in the country. China’s development model has clearly proven that it is possible to catch up with advanced countries without “Washington Consensus”.

As a good friend and partner of Africa, China shares without reservation with Africa the important experience it has accumulated after 30 plus years of reform, opening up and fast economic growth, and helps Africa to improve infrastructure. Over the years, China has helped Africa to build 1046 complete projects and construct 2233 kilometers of railways and 3530 kilometers of roads, making real contribution to the improvement of wellbeing of the African people. Moreover, China-Africa trade exceeded US$200 billion last year, reaching US$220 billion. China’s investment to Africa has also been growing rapidly, with the accumulated figure reaching US$30 billion.

We have witnessed the dramatic change of Africa’s trade structure which shifts from the reliance of the west to China’s market. Such a change has not only raised the price of Africa’s major commodities, but also impacted the development of many countries in the continent. It has also offered experience to these countries in their policy reforms, and brought about more direct investment and assistance to them.

Against such a backdrop, we welcome China’s economic reforms. Comprehensive reforms in China will further unleash the potential for its economic growth, and address the problems of environmental pollution, population aging and income disparity. The African continent hopes to benefit from China’s transformation. Many countries there are repositioning themselves to seek inspiration from China’s reform experience. The Tanzanian government is also deepening trade relations with China to promote its own structural readjustment.